bike trip: 6

"Oh, Garthy!"

"This is a great place."

"Couldn't this street totally be America."

"Oh, Garthy!"

Reeeeeee-urrrrrr. Wooooooooooooo-oooop. Reeoo-reeoo-reeoo.

I rode ahead, Garth rode behind and Paris shuttled between us delivering his messages. Garth honked a horn. it had been Paris's. He had fastened it to Garth's handlebar to make room for the police siren on his own. I saw the two of them fifty yards behind me, waiting. I rode back to them.
"Paris thinks we should hide out while the weather's bad," said Garth;
"It's not that bad," I said.
"It's raining," said Paris.
"We gotta get some food before the stores close. We saw that sign for the supermarket. Two kilometers," I said.
"We shouldn't be out in this weather," said Paris. "We could get struck by lightning."
"As far as we ride to find a place to hide, we could make it to the supermarket. Come on. Ten minutes," I said and pedalled onward.
Ten or fifteen minutes later we locked up our bikes in front of the supermarket. I was looking through canned foods with Garth.
"You're not the only person on the trip, Finnagain," said Garth. "Paris is one third of the group and you should consider what he wants, too."
"If it made any sense," I said.
"You're the risk-taker. The keep-moving-forward guy. Paris isn't like that but it's his bike trip, too."
"Why doesn't he come talk to me himself?"
"He wasn't complaining about you. I just thought it wasn't nice when he was saying he wanted to wait out the rain and you just rode off like you made your own decision. You have to let Paris be part of this bike trip."
I picked up a can of spaghetti.
"He can be part of the bike trip," I said. "He wanted to hide from the storm--so I said it was only two kilometers to the supermarket and here we are. Safe, sheltered. Where else was there to hide out there? Under a tree? What if that gets hit by lightning? And, listen, we have about 1500 kilometers to cover in the next 30 days. We can't stop every time there's a little rain or we'll never make it. The riding's not gonna be easy. It's a lot of work, we ride all day, a few little breaks and then ride and ride and ride. Besides, to be honest, I'm gonna have this anxiety until we get to Amsterdam. That's our first major destination. We'll be staying there two days and then taking the train to Berlin. And then we're really travelling. All this--France, Belgium--we know the language, we're just moving town to town, town to town. Amsterdam's the destination. And besides, to be perfectly honest, there we will have coffeeshops, we will get mushrooms, and quite frankly, I really can't wait for it and I feel pressed to keep moving til we get there. And even more so, I feel quite ecstatic at the prospect of a joint easing my mind into blithe calm and peace because Paris is--Don't you...?"
"He can be a little annoying but you still have to respect that he's part of the trip. We don't just do things your way cause you speak with authority and always know where we're going--"
"I do always know where we're going."
"--but it's not up to you. It's Paris's trip, too. So listen to what he wants and we will all discuss our plans as a group."
"Okay."